Why are there (mostly) only western lowland gorillas in captivity?

[elefante]

Does anyone know why there are no mountain or eastern lowland gorillas (except the one female in Antwerp) in captivity? I know that western lowland gorillas are most common, but did eastern lowland and mountain gorillas just not breed well? Were there attempts to maintain captive populations? Are there numbers considered too small to capture some for captivity now? I can see why there are no Cross River gorillas in captivity due to their rarity.

 

[vogelcommando]

In the time zoo-animals were still coming from the wild normaly animals which were living in relative easy acceseble areas were caught for the animal-trade. With Gorillas it was also the case that mainly young / babies were sold to zoos because adults were to difficult to catch. Countries like Gabon and Cameroon have / had good acces so gorillas living there ( = western lowland gorillas ) ended-up in the animal-trade.
Mountain and Eastern lowland gorillas live in much more difficult to reach areas and the young / baby-animals had to be brought to the coast (transport in those days was mainly by ship ) and because of the distance only very few animals made this journey without dying.
In the mid-1950-ties Congo was still a colony of Belgium and thats why most of the very few Eastern lowland gorillas which were brought to western zoos ended up at Antwerp Zoo.
In the mid-1980-ties an attemp to bring some Mountain gorillas to a zoo in Germany ( as can be seen in the movie "Gorillas in the Mist" ) ended with the death of the 2 animals - if I remember it right - and thats why further attemps didn't take place after that.

 

[FBBird]

In the time zoo-animals were still coming from the wild normaly animals which were living in relative easy acceseble areas were caught for the animal-trade. With Gorillas it was also the case that mainly young / babies were sold to zoos because adults were to difficult to catch. Countries like Gabon and Cameroon have / had good acces so gorillas living there ( = western lowland gorillas ) ended-up in the animal-trade.
Mountain and Eastern lowland gorillas live in much more difficult to reach areas and the young / baby-animals had to be brought to the coast (transport in those days was mainly by ship ) and because of the distance only very few animals made this journey without dying.
In the mid-1950-ties Congo was still a colony of Belgium and thats why most of the very few Eastern lowland gorillas which were brought to western zoos ended up at Antwerp Zoo.
In the mid-1980-ties an attemp to bring some Mountain gorillas to a zoo in Germany ( as can be seen in the movie "Gorillas in the Mist" ) ended with the death of the 2 animals - if I remember it right - and thats why further attemps didn't take place after that.

I think it was Cologne that had that last import, and the gorillas lived a few years only.

 

[Pertinax]

In the mid-1980-ties an attemp to bring some Mountain gorillas to a zoo in Germany ( as can be seen in the movie "Gorillas in the Mist" ) ended with the death of the 2 animals - if I remember it right - and thats why further attemps didn't take place after that.

The two Mountain Gorillas that went to Cologne Zoo were the centre of a political row also- they had been fostered by Dian Fossey after being orphaned and she intended to repatriate them into a group at some stage. Instead, they became a political gift from the Rwandan(?) government to Germany and were removed from her care and sent to Cologne Zoo. There was much critisism of this move, not only from Fossey herself but within Zoo and environmental circles also. The two animals named Coco and Pucker, also turned out not to be a true pair, but two females. They lived at the zoo for about eight years before both dying within a month or two of each other.